May Favourites

I've been having fun with more Chibitronics cards but probably won't include those in this post as I have several other favourite cards...

The one with the antique photo was for a challenge to use photos. Normally, no problem. But for the last year or more, our printer has steadfastly refused to print on anything other than regular paper. Photo paper - no; trasnparencies, no; vellum - just about. So I rooted through the box where I knew I had kept some photos from an old album when I was throwing it out. It led me to look up "instantaneous photography" because it surprised me to see the term on such an old photo. Lorraine, thank you for the perfect stamp to use on this.

 

I need a couple of special  birthday cards for July, and was making sure to have them made and filed away safely in good time. The garden room is the interior of one, and then we have a pop-up tag book. Postage went up in April and I didn't realise till about three weeks ago. Oops. 

Notre-Dame on a sunny evening

Because we got back to Paris earlier than expected after visiting Giverny, we had time and energy for an evening walk. Here are a few photos of Notre Dame cathedral, as the sun was starting to set. They were rather hurried...in the seventh photo down, the man wearing a dark tie was one of the park custodians, blowing his whistle and trying to usher everybody out of the little park just beside the cathedral. Later during our stay we saw a sign in the Place des Vosges saying that this year some parks would be left open in the evening after the normal closing time, which I think is a great idea.
You can see all the Spring chestnut and cherry blossoms - it was a beautiful time to be there.

Vernon

As I mentioned, we got an earlier shuttle bus back from Giverny than we had planned. Without about 40 minutes till the train to Paris was due, we decided that we just about had time for a quick walk as far as the Seine and back, allowing for a (few) pauses for photos. It was a lovely old town, and we would certainly spend more time here if/when we visit Giverny again.

Old bank building to rent

Old and new

Old ad new...

Looking down the Seine

Maths lessons  

It's that time of year again...

There are chirps and cheeps coming from all over as the young fledglings are hatched.
C called me last night and said there was a robin feeding a young one on the back wall. I was in the middle of making cheese soufflé for dinner so I only had  few minutes and just grabbed two shots.

But this morning, with half an hour to sit in the sun before heading out for the day, I took my camera and got a couple more. One shows the adult robin taking a well-deserved pause from feeding two greedy beaks; he sat there for a few moments ignoring the insistent chirps. And apparently one is never too young to enjoy a good sunbath.

Giverny part 3

Mostly in the house - which was very crowded and consequently not photo-friendly.

We had been planning to get a later train back to Paris, but at this stage in the heat we felt we didn't want to walk around the town just for the sake of it, and the shuttle bus for the earlier train was due to leave in about twenty minutes so we went for it - and the next post will be a few photos from a very quick walk we took in Vernon before the train. If we had been planning to get the earlier train, I think we might have felt rushed, but because it was a spontaneous decision when we felt we'd seen enough of the garden, there was no pressure on us. It was beautiful to see Giverny again, but I hope that our next visit will be an autumn one.

Giverny part 2

In the main area of the garden (mostly the tulip as you can see from the reflections was by the water).